The Halki Seminary and the Patriarchate’s Existential Crisis

AFP reported on Thursday that the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul, Bartholomew I, was hopeful Turkey would re-open a historic seminary it shut down nearly four decades ago. The Halki Orthodox

Theological Seminary, located on the island of Halki off the coast of Istanbul, was the key Patriarchical institution for educating the Greek Orthodox Community and training its future clergy for more than a century before it was closed down by the Turkish government in 1971.

The Patriarch was responding to signals last week by Turkey’s Culture Minister that Ankara is planning to re-open the Greek seminary, considered vital to the survival of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul.

The Turkish Government forcibly closed down the Seminary under a law bringing Turkish universities under the state’s control. Another law, however, made it illegal for anyone to enter the Orthodox priesthood unless they have graduated from Halki.

Since the closure of the Halki Seminary, the Patriarchate has faced insurmountable barriers in staffing the Ecumenical Patriarchate to carry out the Church’s many administrative and spiritual responsibilities. The only option left for the Patriarchate has been to bring clergymen and individuals from abroad to work at the ecumenical patriarchate, often illegally, since the Turkish government does not give them work permits.

Furthermore, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has no property rights in Turkey and is taxed beyond excess. Under Turkish law, the General Directorate of Welfare Foundations has the power to unilaterally confiscate minority properties.

Along with the Halki Seminary, the Turkish Government has confiscated (usually secretly) 75 % of the Ecumenical Patriarchate’s properties, including homes, apartment buildings, schools, land, churches, monasteries, and even cemeteries.

On March 20, 2006 the government erased the name of the Patriarchate from the ownership deed of the Orphanage of Buyukada, replacing it with the name of a minority foundation it had seized in 1997. This move resulted in the effective confiscation of the orphanage.

The Turkish government proceeded with the confiscation despite an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights by the Patriarchate in 2005. The Orphanage, which is the largest wooden building in Europe, had been a Patriarchal institution, celebrating 550 years of continuous service under the care and guidance of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, preserving the Orthodox Faith, Hellenic Ideals and Greek Education.

In the eyes of the Turkish government, the Ecumenical Patriarchate does not exist as a legal entity, and as a result, has virtually no rights. Although it was established in 451 AD, Turkish authorities refuse to recognize the Patriarchate as “Ecumenical” or International. Turkish law has relegated this 2,000 year-old church, which serves as the focal point of Orthodox Christendom, to a Turkish institution.

As a result, the Turkish government also controls the process by which the Ecumenical Patriarch is selected. Through illegal decrees, the government has imposed heavy restrictions on the election of the Ecumenical Patriarchs, requiring the Patriarch and the Hierarchs that elect him to be Turkish citizens. The very existence of the Ecumenical Patriarchate has been put in jeopardy as a consequence of these decrees.

Turkish law requires that even priests must be Turkish citizens. This excludes eligible clergy from around the world from attending to Turkey’s Greek community, which now numbers less than 3,000—most of which are elderly and not eligible candidates.

There are currently roughly 200 Greek Orthodox Clergymen who live in Turkey and are Turkish citizens. Without the Halki Seminary, the Ecumenical Patriarchate has been forced to send its future clerics outside the country for training. Unfortunately, most do not return home. These restrictions severely limit not only who can become a priest, but also who can become the Ecumenical Patriarch.These policies are wearing away at the Christian presence in Turkey and threaten to eventually wipe out the Ecumenical Patriarchate, which stands as a 2,000 year-old spiritual beacon for more than 300,000 million orthodox Christians around the world.

Since 1923, successive Turkish Governments have subjected the Ecumenical Patriarchate to a protracted and systemic campaign of institutional and cultural repression, squeezing the country’s Greek minority and its religious institutions to the point of complete exhaustion and despair.

Despite direct stipulations in the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne that Turkey must legally recognize and protect its religious minorities, Christian communities in Turkey currently face unfair official restrictions regarding the ownership and operation of churches and seminaries. The Turkish Government interferes in the selection of their religious leaders. Christian education has all but vanished, while freedom of expression and association, although provided for on paper, tend to get people killed.

This political climate of religious repression has, for decades, encouraged extremists to attack the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Istanbul defacing its walls and desecrating its cemeteries.

In 1955, riots broke out in Istanbul and quickly turned into pogroms against Greeks as 73 Orthodox churches and 23 schools were vandalized, burned, or destroyed; 1,004 houses of Orthodox citizens were looted; and 4,348 stores, 110 hotels, 27 pharmacies, and 21 factories were destroyed. The Greek Orthodox population in 1955 was 100,000. In 1998, a Greek Orthodox official was murdered at his church, Saint Therapon, in Istanbul. The church was then robbed and set on fire.

Growing focus on Turkey in recent years and the country’s bid to join the European Union, has raised awareness and concern about the fate of the Patriarchate among governments, organizations and people around the world.

The European Union has long asked Turkey to re-open the seminary in order to prove its commitment to human rights as it strives to become a member of the bloc.

The Turkish Government, keen to boost its European credentials as it seeks EU membership, says it may finally take steps to prevent the destruction of one of the world’s oldest Christian churches and its Congregation.

The bitter reality is that the very existence of the Patriarchate has been threatened by the very government that is now vaguely promising to save it.

Related posts

Discussion Policy

Comments are welcomed and encouraged. Though you are fully responsible for the content you post, comments that include profanity, personal attacks or other inappropriate material will not be permitted. Asbarez reserves the right to block users who violate any of our posting standards and policies.

8 Comments

It’s very disturbing to think that all this distruction and grief the greek people have been subjected to these last few centuries has all occured on their own land.Throughout history turks have proved over and over,they are destroyers and not builders. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The official Turkey’s policy have never changed, Turkey is a country, where “pan Turkism” still alive, and with their Islamist elements will be a major threat to Europe and European Union.
If they join EU, that will be end of “the unity” of European countries.

As an armenian, we all know about all these empty promises from the successive turkish goevernments. What a joke ???, you need to be graduated from the Halki theological school to serve Greek community, on the other hand the school is closed ?!?! Not only greeks but all armenian minority belongings were treated in a such a way where the government had the unilateral right to seize belongings. Please let me know when a muslim mosque will be seized in Turkey.

What a dream world…some naive people still believe that Turkey may oneday join the EU. It’s not enough to reopen a school or to put some make up and liftings…what about all seized properties, killed people’s belongings during the last century. What about the losses of minorities during the Armenian, Greek and Assyrian Genocides ? What about all other losses because of the Whealth tax applied with great injustice specially to Armenians and Greeks ? the list is long….

The Turks have consistently persecuted and destroyed any remnants of Greeks, Jews, and Armenians in Anatolia. Constantinople is the heart of Greek culture and the center of Orthodox Christanity. Unfortunately the Unites States and western Europe never have cared about the plight of Orthodox Christians in the Middle East and Europe. The Turks of today are as barbaric as the hordes that overran the Byzantine Empire and Armenia.
They took all their cultural traits from those that they conquered. They were nomads who did not even know of agriculture. What can be expected from such a demonic group?

Destroting beauty and culture has been the modus vivendi of the Turks . Destroying the Greek churches in Smyrna, Constantinople, Cappadocia is mentioning just a few….the list is too long and applies to too many people who were unfortunate enough to have anything to do with these barbarians….Except the corrupt politicians the great majority of Europeans are against Turkey joing the EU with very good reasons. The French and the Austrians in particular will vote against the EU entry of the Turks in order to stop the unwelcome “visitors” of over 70 million who have nothing in common with the Europeans, as far as culture, religion or human rights are concerned.

i agree with commentators here. the turks are the same old barbarians they will remain so in the future.they are incapable of acting like humans until europe and america finally wake up and realize the grave danger they are facing from these criminals.

Hye, Turkish leaders are still in the Ottoman mode albeit they claim to be a democracy… These warrior hordes descended from the mountains of Asia, attacked the civilized cultures, chose to take the Armenian lands by perpetrating the Genocide of the Armenian nation, and as well, took on as though their own, all the civilized culture of the Armenians – still until today. Turk were not farmers, builders, just conquerors, warriors – still until today. As a matter of fact, I wonder if they have any of their own convoluted history before they committed the Armenian Genocide. Turks are unable to abide by any agreements….. ever.

Today, speaking of history, Turks educate their youth without the truth of the Turkish history of
the Genocides against civilized cultures, and as well, unbelievably, they educate their youth to believe that the
Armenians are the enemy of all Turks. (Imagine, thus the victims of the Genocide perpetrated by their predecessor Ottoman governments against the Christian Armenians – and all subsequent Turkish governments’ denials – are now the ‘enemy’ of Turks.
Still today, we suffer the loss of Hrant Dink, and many more non-Muslims, and abuse of Turkey’s own citizens! Even more, before the world a Turkey appears that aspires to be the arbiter for other nations. How is a Turkey
prepared/qualified for this above so many civilized leaderships of the world? A Turkey mired in denials, lies, dishonesty before the world. A Turkey who claims to be a ‘democracy’… now nearly 100 years – but when?
Manooshag

Latest

Armenia’s Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wants answers from Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko who reportedly has shared details of a recent summit of the CSTO with a high-ranking diplomat from Azerbaijan

Most Popular

Armenia’s Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wants answers from Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko who reportedly has shared details of a recent summit of the CSTO with a high-ranking diplomat from Azerbaijan